A Tale of Two Papers
March 23, 2007
Those of you who follow my blog may have noticed that I referred to the British Independent paper twice in the last few days. Well a lot of the blog readers seem to be The Guardian readers too. I am also a Guardian reader and can’t wait to head back to the States to scan some of their G2 daily magazines inside the paper. The main reason I love, and what my blog readers hate, is the cover story approach of The Independent. Take today’s cover story about the British budget and compare that front page with that of The Guardian. Somehow, one stops you faster than the other. I will let you be the judge which one stops you first.
Mr. Magazine 
I think the problem comes from the stigma attached to magazines and newspapers. Correct me If I’m wrong (please!) but Newspaper readers want to feel informed and that they are getting all the information they need upfront. Magazines are often seen as recreational, something you can kepp for a while and take in at your leisure.
The main critisisms levelled at the new Independent is that is has ‘dumbed down’. This could be simply because they carry less information on the front cover. The Gaurdian also panders to us Guardian readers’ need to feel like were of some sort of higher intelligence than you’re commonherd ‘tabloid’ readers (hence they preference for the ‘Berliner’ size format over the much easier to handle ‘Tabloid’).
Hi Mr. Magazine, just found your blog and like it very much, especially the perspectives on non-US pubs.
Pls. check your Entries RSS feed URL at the bottom of the blog; the URL you get when you click it has “feed:” just before the actual URL and it breaks the link. I figured it out and got it added to My Yahoo but I would hate for others to give up — you have great stuff!
Many thanks for your kind words. I will try to solve this problem. Thank you.
Samir
When you look at the budgets both papers have for reporting news, you see that the Guardian’s far outstrips the Indy’s.
Thus the Indy seem to have gone down the route of impact with their front page. The more you see this treatment, day after day after day, though the more it loses that ‘impact’. Especially on slow news days.
Even though on this day the Independent’s front has more impact, the overall content of the Guardian must be taken into account. This is a typical Guardian front. What is amazing is the inside pages and the content they offer. Not to take anything away from the Independent, but the Guardian has a headstart on the rest of the industry. Now only if American newspapers had the gumption to take bold chances on presentation and content like both the afformentioned British papers do.